This Week: “And Then There Were None”
Ok, I’m addicted to Fox News for reporting and opinion on national and international news. I think they’re the only network (not counting OAN) that gives Israel a fair shake. So when I noticed with dismay that its news reporting on Gaza fence clashes seemed to me repeatedly to blame Israel for Hamas’ provocations and attacks, I went to Fox News’ website and commented, “if not you, who?”, first to “Fox News” in general and then to Bret Baier, on whose program these segments appeared. Still, I harbored the hope, acknowledging my hyper-sensitivity to slights of Israel that I perceive, that maybe it’s me.
Alas, it’s not. Media watchdog CAMERA posted a piece Wednesday this week, “Fox News Falls Short in Gaza Coverage.” It focused only on a single Gaza fence confrontation, that of the previous day, but CAMERA seemed to share my dismay. Its post began by asking “Since when did Fox News start carrying water for terror groups in the Gaza Strip? It’s a strange question that must be asked” in view of the short Gaza segment Fox had broadcast the previous day, and ended by asking “Why is Yingst [the report’s Fox News correspondent] assisting in Hamas’s efforts to deceive the world about the purposes of the March of Return? And why is Fox News letting him?” Btw, if you look on CAMERA’s site at its index of Israel coverage-offenses news outlets, you’ll find, e.g., ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, NPR, PBS, etc., but not “Fox News” (at least, yet).
But are we talking here about significant distortion of significant things? Yes. Here’s CAMERA’s bill of complaints.
CAMERA faulted Fox first for calling Gazans’ weekly gatherings at the border mere “protests” against “the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip” which Israel is meeting with “tear gas and live ammunition.” CAMERA says this misportrays as peaceful protests what Hamas bills as “March of Return” attempts “to invade Israel and murder civilians who live nearby,” incorporating fence break-throughs and weapon attacks on Israeli soldiers.
CAMERA faulted the Fox report for quoting a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad accusing Israel of “continuous killing of Palestinian civilians” without counter-balancing that with Israeli reports that “most of the casualties associated with the March of Return were terrorist operatives or members of terror organizations.” CAMERA called this “simply irresponsible.”
CAMERA continued: “The report also relays, without challenge, Palestinian complaints about shortages of water and electricity in the Gaza Strip, which are implicitly blamed on Israel … without acknowledging the role Palestinian leaders have played in causing these shortages.”
And, finally, Fox’s report “also omitted any reference to the incendiary balloon attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip,” which had stopped for a while but “started up again two days before Fox News aired its report.”
What’s disheartening here is even Fox News’ participation in news reports’ demonization of Israeli soldiers defending Israeli civilians from terrorists who mean them grievous harm.
But it was something else that I saw on Fox News channel this week that, to me, exemplifies the immense public perception problem Israel and its supporters are facing. In discussing anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel on “The Five” this week, Five-member Juan Williams referenced Palestinians’ problems from “Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.” Had I been there and countered that Palestinian Arabs aren’t “THE Palestinians,” that the place is Judea-Samaria, not “the West Bank,” and that Israeli presence there is history-grounded homeland-claiming, not “occupation,” it’s likely that even Fox News would have carted me off as a raving lunatic. But whose fault is that? At least partly ours for not relentlessly making that historically valid case.